There are student loans in virtually every country, including Europe, and I'd say they're quite commonly used. The difference is whether they're required to pay for tuition or not. For example, in Norway public universities (which are most, including the best ones) are tuition-free.
In countries like the Netherlands, there is tuition, but heavily subsidised. Fees are about 2k per year, and low (and partially to middle-income) households get a government stipend that is more than double that fee per year.
In short, people in these countries have to pay living expenses, tuition is pretty much covered. And a lot of these countries are quite small and have people living near the university, with decent public transportation, which is often free for students as well. As such lots of students live at home instead of on-campus, moving out for lifestyle reasons as soon as they can (often taking out loans to supplement a parttime job), rather than for the logistics of having to move to a place near the university.
In the US there's a lot of subsidies, state programs, scholarships etc as well. But many people still end up paying way more, especially if they're going out of state. And there's lots of people who end up having to move city to study somewhere, which means paying for room and board are very much a requisite part of their studies.
As such the loan amounts are nowhere near as large. Second, loans tend to be government issued, the cost-of-capital essentially tracking the interest on state bonds (e.g. treasury bills in the US) with a cap of 0%. This means in the Netherlands for example interest rates for student loans have been 0% for years and will likely remain at 0% for many years. This presents a wildly different outlook for students because borrowing $30k today isn't going to turn into having to pay back $100k over the course of the loan the coming decades, but just $30k, which is depreciating due to inflation in real terms over time.
The universities themselves are paid for in full by the government, on top of that any student receives equivalent to about 300 euros/month to cover costs of living, no strings attached. Now that's not nearly enough to live on in Sweden so most people do get loans offered with very preferable terms to students, although some prefer to get a part-time job to cover costs of living.
-The Norwegian system is similar, in that tuition itself is free; however, being as sparsely populated as we are, most students have to leave home in order to obtain higher education - and a significant part of those living close enough to a site of higher learning move out from their parents anyway - it is kind of, sort of expected that you'll try to live on your own once you graduate from our high school equivalent (at age 19)
So - most of your student loan is used to cover a roof over your head and food in your belly. (Oh, and beer.)
There is literally no tuition in Sweden. The loans are for rent and general cost of living. You can have literally zero means and still go to university in another city.
You said it, cost of living ain’t free. My experience from Sweden is that few people work alongside studies, and even fewer have expenses paid for by well-off parents. Maybe if you’re from the city where you study you stay living and eating at home, but otherwise it’s very common to take out a (fairly cheap) student loan from the Swedish Board of Student Finance to cover your expenses.
In Sweden you get a student loan and a grant to pay for housing, food, transport etc from CSN. [1] The grant is about 1/3 of the total sum.
I studied at university and my parents paid nothing. Even as an adult student could I go back and get the grant part. In Sweden the state pays for you to study.
This is not necisarilly true. As a student in Sweden I can explain how our system works.
The university is free for swedes and europeans (might only be free for schengen countries). In Sweden we have a government agency that controlls student loans and subsidies (the agency is called CSN, Central Study Board). As a Swedish citizen you have the right to a ~2000 SEK (around 300 USD) per month subsidy. So just by attending university you get 2k SEK each month (this is limited to I think 12 terms in total, i.e 6 years), this is something you don't have you pay back.
We then also have the right to a student loan which will push up your monthly "earnings" to ~8000 SEK (1200 USD). This loan you obviously have to pay back. The current plan is that every student that took a loan before 2001 have 25 years to repay it.
Students that live at home during the duration of their study time can get away with only taking the subsidy. But most student (at least those that I know, including me) have to take the student loan.
The very concept of student loans is mind-boggling for them.
I only know how it works in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, but students loans are super common there. Even though tuition is free you still have food, rent, books and other living expenses that all have to be paid for. How do most German students pay those costs?
I'm a 22 year old university student in Sweden (starting my 2nd year now) and I find it hard to imagine life with school costing a fortune like this.
Sure I, and most students in Sweden, take loans to pay for food, rent and books but the school itself is free - even now! We're also getting a good low rent loan with a part allowance. No wonder we're having so many foreign students. That's going to change from next year though when the foreigners will get charged.
It's true that Sweden/Finland don't do quite as well in this area as places like Denmark (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_Denmark), Germany, or France, all of which supply are fairly generous with living cost grants for students.
Compared to US students, though, they're doing great.
Whereas higher education is free in most of europe, you are still usually reliant on getting sent money from your parents to finance your living expenses. In Scandinavia you are not dependant on having parents with money to pursue higher education.
If you get accepted to a University, you apply and you'll get equivalent of 13-14k usd every year of study to cover living expenses.
Up to 40% of it gets converted to a grant, depending on how many of your classes you passed. The loan is also under very favorable conditions, interest free while studying, very low interest after finished, usually paid over 20 years, and you can postpone payment up to 36 times (3 years) whenever you want.
Genuinely curious how common borrowing money for university is in Europe. A lot of people here in the states are under the impression - myself included - that education is more or less free of charge over there.
> Its common here in the US to have a part time job to pay for your expenses. Is it not the case in sweden?
It's not particularly common, no. You might work a month or two during the summer breaks, perhaps.
As mentioned, tuition itself is free, but students still need to pay basic living costs. In order to allow students to focus on their studies, students receive financial aid towards these costs while studying. Pretty much everybody is covered for this aid. Part of it is "free" (i.e., a grant that you get every month, which you do not need to pay back), and a second part is a loan, which needs to be payed back later. You can choose yourself whether you'd like to avail of the "loan" part, and for how much (up to an upper limit). The loan has pretty good terms; you have several decades to pay it off (if you wish to take that long), at low interest rates (it used to be ~2% a few years ago, and is currently 0.6%).
This is available for non-Swedish citizens studying in Sweden as well, I believe.
Unfortunately same applies in Nordic countries too, where all education is free and all students get 500€ monthly no-questions-asked free money and housing.
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